Organizing in Our Communities Post-September 11th (2001)

by Monami Maulik

Since
the tragic loss of lives on September 11th, I find the need for
organizing in my community is even greater in the coming years. But
this is not because September 11th was or will be the only mass-scale
loss of human lives. Since the Gulf War, over 500,000 Iraqi children
have died as a direct result of economic sanctions imposed by the
U.S. against Iraq. Are the lives of these children any less valuable?
In the midst of realizing the mass-scale inhumanity of war and
imperialism, grassroots organizing can be the source of hope for a
building a world centered on social justice. What distinguishes
organizing from services, advocacy, and relief-work is that
organizing seeks to change the root causes of social injustice as
opposed to responding to its symptoms. But the question becomes
whether we are organizing to challenge the institutions that create
oppression or to maintain the status-quo?
The
tragedies of September 11 th continue to deeply hurt the South Asian
community at large on multiple levels. First, we have lost members of
our community in the World Trade Center. Moreover, a large number of
those missing were low-wage, undocumented immigrant service workers
whose families do not qualify for federal aid and benefits. Second,
during this period of grief, we have had to endure perhaps the worst
mass-scale anti-Arab, anti-South Asian, and anti-Muslim violence this
country has seen. Hundreds of incidents ranging from threats to
beatings to killings have been reported around the country. Our
homes, communities, and places of worship have been under siege. And
these are only the incidents that are reported. Moreover, this
anti-immigrant backlash is currently being institutionalized via new
anti-terrorist legislation, racial profiling, and the suspension of
hard-won civil rights. Thousands of immigrants have been illegally
detained and deported since September 11th, most of whom are Arab,
South Asian, and Muslim. Third, U.S. bombing of Afghanistan and
military presence in Pakistan to wage an endless war has many of us
concerned with the possible impending devastation of our communities
and families back home.
Given
this hostile climate nationally for the South Asian immigrant
community, particularly for undocumented immigrants in the years to
come, there is an urgent need now more than ever to organize against
the growing conservatism that can undo years of anti-racist,
feminist, anti-homophobic, and pro-working class struggle. Our
short-term objectives must be to re-build security in our communities
against racial violence and provide emergency relief to undocumented
families. Our long-term objectives need to challenge racism and
xenophobia, organize to end state violence in the form of the Patriot
Act and other racist, anti-immigrant legislation, and to build the
emerging anti-war movement with the leadership of immigrant and
people of color communities, particularly those whose voices are
historically marginalized, such as women, queer people, undocumented
immigrants, and low-wage workers.
But
as socially conscious South Asians, perhaps our biggest challenge in
organizing our communities in the coming years will be to counter the
growing conservative backlash we are witnessing. In the past several
weeks, mainstream South Asian organizations have followed the
destructive path of blind patriotism that has fueled the horrific war
against Afghanistan and the passage of the Patriot Act, one of the
most anti-immigrant legislations passed by the U.S. in recent
history. At the same time, conservative and communalist forces that
have fueled anti-Muslim, anti-Dalit, and anti-Christian violence in
India have been lobbying the U.S. government to inject its military
might in South Asia to fuel the war over Kashmir.
This
is the moment that we must ask ourselves what side of the fence do we
stand on? The side that will only perpetuate more violence against
Third World people around the world like that we have glimpsed so
close to home on September 11th? Or the side that is for peace with
justice both within the U.S., for immigrants, poor people, women,
queer people, and people of color, and outside the U.S., for the
people of Afghanistan and other nations targeted by U.S. militarism
and imperialism? DRUM and the community organizing we practice stands
for the latter.